Get ready for robots

A hotel that is part of an amusement park in Japan has replaced its reception staff with robots.

One robot looks like a dinosaur, but speaks English. The other looks like a human female, complete with blinking lashes, and speaks Japanese.

The hotel owners say the robots are no joke and that they’re using them in a quest for higher efficiency and cost savings. These are phrases that warm the hearts of businesses, phrases that should make people who need jobs stop and ponder.

Some of the smarter people around—astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, Tesla founder Elon Musk and Microsoft founder Bill Gates agree that we need to get prepared for the next wave of technology, which is artificial intelligence. We need to plan for the impacts of AI before robots inhabit every business, every home and every branch of government.

Today, the Internet still seems like a sneak attack to the government agencies, businesses and organizations that didn’t pay attention to it as it quickly evolved. Cybersecurity is a problem at every level of every organization, even 46 years after the first remote university computers were linked in 1969. Yet, lawmakers and government officials act as though it’s a surprise when their computer networks are hacked or foreign organizations steal everything from citizens’ identities to movies that came out yesterday.

As a society, we need to think about our lives and values Before Robots and what they may be After Robots. Will robots replace human beings in the production of goods? What will human beings do to earn a living? As artificial intelligence advances, will robots pose a threat to us?

It sounds so sci-fi, but it’s coming on fast. This time around, we need to anticipate the impacts of AI, get ahead of the technology, get our legal and social infrastructure in place and be ready when they happen.